John Irving

Author of American classics including The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp - Panelist Blurb

American Novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Irving is one of the most popular and respected writers in the world. His novels have become American classics; each one is a publishing event.

Irving's first international bestseller, The World According to Garp, introduced a world of readers to his inventive and expansive style, memorable characters, and masterfully woven stories-within-stories. Garp won a National Book Award in 1980 and was made into a film starring Robin Williams.

Since Garp's release, all of Irving's novels, including The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A Widow for One Year, have been translated into more than 30 languages and sold tens of millions of copies. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie of The Cider House Rules - a film with seven Academy Award nominations.

Irving has won numerous awards, including the O. Henry Award and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. A former wrestler and assistant wrestling coach at Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1992. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Irving currently has three screenplays in-progress. His twelfth and most recent novel, Last Night in Twisted River, was released in 2009. The father of three sons, Irving resides in Toronto and Southern Vermont with his wife.